A Century Of Science Fiction

Science fiction is a native 20th century art form that came of age at the same time as jazz. Like jazz, science fiction is very street-level, very American, rather sleazy, rather popular, with a long and somewhat recondite tradition. It's also impossible to avoid, no matter how hard you try.

Science fiction boasts an impressive predictive track record--if you squint hard and ignore most of the evidence. Atom bombs, spacecraft, comsats, credit cards, jukeboxes, waterbeds, gene splicing--they all appeared in science fiction first, well before showing up at the mall or on the military base. But science fiction is visionary by...